North and South: The North and South Trilogy (Book One)

by John Jakes

  Her new course took her past another small fire. There, the lieutenant—dashing, good-looking—sat with his shirt off. He was struggling to tie a clean bandage around a nasty cut in his shoulder. Martha paused to help him with the knot. He thanked her in that courtly Southern way of his. Thrilled, she went on.

  Charles reclined on his elbows and kept track of her, almost like a watchful parent, until she faded into the darkness.

  Elkanah Bent lay with his hand between his thighs, surprised at his sudden strong reaction. The Lantzman girl, whom he had been watching from the concealment of the cottonwoods, was a mere child.

  Ah, but not above the waist, he thought, licking his lips.

  It had been a long while since he had slept with a woman or even touched one. Naturally no officer dared lay a hand on one so young. But he still had an urge to speak to her. With luck, maybe he could even contrive to touch her.

  The mere existence of that impulse proved things were once again moving in his favor. He lifted the flask, shook it, then drank until it was empty. Still quite timid, he lurched to his feet and slipped through the grove, away from the light of the campfires.

  Following her mother’s instructions, Martha didn’t walk far, only to the creek bank on the other side of the cottonwoods. She was surprised at how much she could see by the light of the rising moon. She folded her arms across her breasts, tilted her head back, and sighed with contentment.

  The night breeze soothed her, stirred a pleasant rustling in the grass. Softly, she began to hum “Old Folks at Home.” Then all at once she heard a noise in the grove. She whirled.

  “Is someone there?”

  “Only Captain Bent, my dear.”

  He came lumbering from the trees, hatless and not very steady on his feet. Martha’s heart began to race. She called herself a ninny. Surely she had nothing to fear from an Army officer.

  “I thought I heard movement out here,” he continued as he approached. “I’m glad to know it’s someone friendly.”

  The false cordiality alarmed her. He smelled of whiskey mixed with sweat. With his back to the moon, he resembled a grotesque two-legged elephant. He moved closer.

  “Lovely night, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, yes. I must go back—”

  “So soon? Please don’t. Not yet.”

  How kind and gentle he sounded. His voice, pitched low, was that of a trustworthy uncle. And yet she heard something else in it. Something that confused her, made her momentarily indecisive.

  He took her inaction for consent. “There, that’s better. I only want to demonstrate my high regard for you.”

  Drunk, she thought. That’s what it is. She had seen her poor dead father drunk many times and knew the signs.

  “You’re a charming girl. Exceptionally lovely for one so young.” His big round head hid the moon. He took another step toward her. “I’d like for us to be friends.”

  His hand stretched toward her hair, picked up the strands that lay gleaming on her left shoulder. All at once she was immobilized, terrified.

  He petted her hair, rubbed it between thumb and fingers. Slowly he increased the tension until he was pulling it. Pulling her. His puffy breathing sounded like the noise of a steam engine.

  “Let go of me. Please.”

  He stiffened, no longer friendly. “Keep your voice down. You mustn’t attract attention.”

  To emphasize that, he seized her forearm. She cried out softly.

  “Damn you, don’t do that,” Bent exclaimed, panicking. “Don’t, I tell you.” This time her outcry was louder, and so was his. “Stop it! Stop it, do you hear?”

  Shaking her, expostulating, he didn’t know anyone else was there until he saw the sudden look of relief in her moonlit eyes. He pivoted like a man turning to face a firing squad. He stepped back when he saw Charles Main—

  And beyond him, bursting from the trees, the older Lantzman boy followed by the mother. The moon flashed on the long barrel of the jaeger musket in her hands.

  Together, Bent’s face and that of the girl told Charles all he needed to know. Mrs. Lantzman rushed to her daughter’s side. Voices began to overlap.

  “Martha, did he hurt you?” The brother.

  “I knew it wasn’t safe for you to go walking.” The mother.

  Bent, hoarse and upset: “I did nothing to her. Nothing!”

  And the girl: “Yes, he did. He put his hands on me and started playing with my hair. He wouldn’t stop—”

  “Quiet,” Charles said. “Everyone keep quiet.”

  They obeyed. He saw a sentry hurrying toward them, several troopers not far behind. He stepped around Mrs. Lantzman, wigwagged his arm.

  “Go back to camp. Everything’s all right.”

  The sentry and the others turned and moved away again. Charles waited until they were out of sight beyond the cotton woods, then gave Bent a fierce look. The captain was perspiring heavily, weaving on his feet. He avoided Charles’s eye.

  “Martha, are you hurt?” Charles asked.

  “N-no.”

  “Take her back to your lean-to, Mrs. Lantzman. Keep her there the rest of the night.”

  Small fists clenched on the musket, the woman stood her ground. Her glance bayoneted the captain. “What kind of men do they send to serve in Texas? Men with no morals?”

  “Mrs. Lantzman, this won’t help,” Charles interrupted. “Your daughter’s all right. The incident is unfortunate, but we’ve all been under a lot of strain. I’m sure the captain regrets any accidental indiscretion—”

  “Accidental?” The girl’s brother snorted. “He’s drunk. Smell him!”

  Bent blurted, “Damn you for an impertinent—” Charles seized the captain’s upraised arm and thrust it down. Bent gasped, opened his fist, let his arm fall to his side.

  Charles grasped Martha’s shoulder lightly and her brother’s. He turned them both toward the trees. “Stay in the lean-to and try to forget about this. I’m sure Captain Bent will offer his apology to all of you.”

  “Apology? Under no circumstances will I—”

  Again Bent stopped. He whispered, “Yes. Consider it tendered.”

  Mrs. Lantzman looked as if she wanted to shoot him. Charles spoke softly to her. “Go. Please.”

  The woman passed the musket to her son. She put her arm around Martha’s waist and led her away. Bent pressed both palms against his face, kept them there for about ten seconds, then lowered them.

  “Thank you,” he said to Charles.

  Charles didn’t reply.

  “I don’t understand why you helped me, but I am—grateful.”

  “Nothing would be accomplished if she shot you. And she’d only regret it later. If there’s to be any punishment for what just happened, it should come from the proper quarter.”

  “Punishment? What do you mean?”

  Again Charles was silent. He turned and stalked away through the wind-tossed grass.

  Five miles from Camp Cooper, Bent galloped to the head of the column where Charles was riding. They had been traveling in a drizzle since shortly after breakfast. Charles’s spirits felt as bedraggled as his men looked.

  Bent cleared his throat. Charles could predict what his superior was going to say.

  “I appreciate your actions on my behalf last night. I attempted to convey my feelings then, but you were in no mood to listen. I thought I should try again.”

  Charles gazed at Bent from beneath the dripping brim of his hat. He could barely contain his disgust. “Captain, believe me, I didn’t do it to help you personally. I did it because of the uniform you’re wearing. I did it for the sake of the regiment. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, surely. I—I don’t expect you to feel kindly toward me. What I want to ask—that is—since we’ll soon be back in camp—what do you think Mrs. Lantzman will say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What?”

  How sickeningly hopeful Bent looked then. Charles leaned over the other way and spat.<
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  “She’ll say nothing. I spoke to her at breakfast. She understands that an accusation would serve no purpose. Perhaps Martha even learned a valuable lesson. Mrs. Lantzman’s point of view is simple and eminently decent. Since no real harm was done, why should she ruin you?”

  Now came the insidious part. If his method was less than admirable, his purpose could hardly be faulted. He held Bent’s eyes, continuing:

  “But I know she’d be glad to come back to Camp Cooper or even travel to Fort Mason, if I asked. She would do it if I needed her at my court-martial. To testify to my character and the character of others.”

  Bent’s brows flew up. He understood. He realized he had escaped one trap only to be forced into a more humiliating one. His face grew hostile again.

  “Your tactics are worthy of a criminal.”

  “Bullshit, Captain. While I save my career, I’m handing you a chance to save yours. To do it is easy. Just keep your mouth shut. If you don’t like that idea, however, we’ll put the entire matter in front of Major Thomas. He’s sat on plenty of courts-martial down here. I’m willing to trust his judgment.”

  “No, no—” Bent raised one of his fancy gauntlets; it was torn across the back. “I accept your terms. There will be no charges.”

  Charles couldn’t help a sudden, cold smile.

  “Thought that was what you’d decide.”

  He touched his hat brim, reined to the left, and went galloping back along the line, mud flying up behind him. A big gob struck the yellow cloth-and-gold embroidery of Bent’s left shoulder strap.

  49

  THE LANTZMANS RESTED OVERNIGHT at Camp Cooper, then left for their farm with an escort. Bent disappeared in his quarters, violently sick with dysentery again. Charles knew little about medicine, but he suspected the recent turmoil had precipitated the captain’s illness.

  In General Orders from Washington, Charles and the captain received commendations for the rescue of the Lantzman family. Lafayette O’Dell received his posthumously. His body was never found.

  Bent requested and was granted medical leave in San Antonio. It fell to Charles to write letters to the families of O’Dell and the three other men lost in the action at the farm. He had no talent for the task, disliked it intensely, but got it out of the way in a single evening.

  By the time he finished the last letter he was able silently to put words to a feeling that had been stirring in his mind for the past couple of days. He was not the same officer, not the same person, who had set out with the relief detachment.

  Oh, things were just about the same on the surface. He was still flamboyant, and he smiled about as much as he had before. Yet all of that concealed a profound inner change, a change born of everything he had seen and been forced to do while on the rescue mission. The West Point cadet was a pleasant but not very real memory. The romantic amateur had become a hardened professional.

  A boy had died and given rise, phoenixlike, to a man.

  “I heard a mail sack arrived this morning,” Charles said on the fourth day after his return.

  “Yes, sir. These came for you.” The noncom passed him a packet of three letters tied with string, adding, “The sack sat in a warehouse in San Antonio for a month and a half.”

  “Why?” Charles snapped, leafing through the packet. The letter on top was nearly a half inch thick. On all three he recognized Orry’s handwriting.

  “Can’t say, sir. Reckon it’s just the Army way.”

  “The Army way in Texas, at any rate.”

  Charles went outside and headed for his quarters, ripping the thick letter open as he walked. He noted the April date, then the first sentences:

  Your inquiry about your commanding officer prompts my immediate and concerned reply. If he is the same Elkanah Bent I know from the Academy and Mexico, I warn you most urgently that you could be in great danger.

  Abruptly Charles broke stride, stopping to stand motionless in the center of the dusty parade. Though the morning was scorching, he was all at once cold.

  Let me attempt to explain—although, as you have doubtless grasped from direct encounters with the gentleman in question, neither a complete nor a logical explanation of his behavior is possible. That was also the case when George Hazard and I were unfortunate enough to meet him for the first time—

  Hastily, Charles folded the letter and, with a sharp look around, strode on to his room. There he sat down to read the closely written pages that unfolded the bizarre tale of two West Point cadets who had incurred the undying enmity of a third. At the end he laid the pages in his lap and stared into the sunlit space created by the rectangle of the open window. Orry was right; it was impossible to comprehend a hatred so consuming or long-lasting that it would seek as victims other members of the Main and Hazard families. But the hatred was real; the past weeks had presented him with harrowing proof.

  As the minutes stretched on, he read the letter twice more, paying special attention to Orry’s account of some of the events in Mexico. Those rereadings did nothing to lessen his shock. If anything, they heightened it.

  He was thankful his cousin had warned him. And yet, knowledge was, in some ways, worse than ignorance. Bent had nurtured his hatred for more than fifteen years, and that made Charles see the true enormity of the man’s madness. The result was a feeling of mortal dread that was new to him, and shameful, and completely beyond his control.

  In subsequent days, whenever he was forced to speak to Bent or appear with him in formations, he did so with extreme difficulty. Always he was conscious of the truth he knew to be hidden behind the captain’s sly eyes.

  For his part, Bent seemed considerably less antagonistic. Indeed, he seldom said a word to his second lieutenant except as duty required. That was a relief. Maybe the danger had lessened as a result of the threats of testimony from Mrs. Lantzman. In any case, as the weeks went by, Charles’s apprehension began to diminish. He looked forward to the day when new orders for himself or Bent would separate them.

  Until then, he had no choice but to be vigilant.

  While the rescue expedition had been away at the Lantzmans’, a known renegade had taken refuge on the Comanche reservation. Leeper, the agent, had subsequently allowed the Indian to leave. Believing Leeper was remiss in not locking up the renegade when he had the chance, farmers in the district were now petitioning Governor Houston to close the agency.

  That was one of the subjects the men at Camp Cooper discussed and argued over during the autumn. There was also a good deal of joking about the experiment at Camp Verde, where Egyptian camels imported by Secretary Davis were being tested as beasts of burden. And the Second spoke proudly of Captain Van Dorn’s successful foray against the Indians at Wichita Village.

  The Ohioans in Company K talked a lot about events back East, too. Vying for reelection to the Senate, Stephen Douglas had debated the Black Republican, Lincoln, at various towns in Illinois. Experts seemed to feel that Douglas would be returned to Washington when the state legislature made its choice in January, but the victory might prove costly. During the meeting at Freeport, Lincoln had maneuvered his opponent into a damaging admission.

  The admission had come during a complex debate about the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the more recent Dred Scott case. In the Scott decision, the Supreme Court had upheld the inviolability of the property rights of slaveholders, had ruled that the Missouri Compromise banning slavery north of a demarcation line was unconstitutional, and had thus effectively negated the theory of popular sovereignty. Never mind, said Douglas in response to Lincoln’s shrewd questioning; Supreme Court or no, there was still one simple, legal, and eminently practical way for any territory to bar slavery, and that was for the legislature to refuse to enact laws specifically protecting the slave owner’s rights. No prudent man would risk valuable Negroes in territory where he might stand to lose them. “Slavery can’t exist a day or an hour anywhere,” the Little Giant said, “unless it is supported by local police regulations.”


  Douglas’s view was christened the Freeport Doctrine. Commenting on it, a Southern officer from the First Infantry at Camp Cooper said to Charles:

  “That man’s done himself in. The Democrats down in our part of the country will never again support his candidacy for anything.”

  In October, Senator Seward gave an address in upstate New York that was widely reported. Seward said North and South were locked in what he termed an “irrepressible conflict” over slavery. The statement inflamed the South all over again, and even ardent Republicans on the post agreed that Seward’s angry rhetoric had pushed the region closer to secession.

  Still, few could imagine Americans ever taking up arms against other Americans. The conflict remained a war of words.

  Occasionally Elkanah Bent injected a comment into the discussions. He had returned from his long leave having lost ten pounds but none of his peculiar opinions. He said a shooting war was entirely conceivable and left no doubt that he’d be happy to see it.

  “War would permit us to put theory into practice. After all, why were we trained? What’s the whole purpose of our profession? Not to keep the peace but to win it once the blood starts to flow. We have no other calling. It’s a holy calling, gentlemen.”

  Several officers, including Charles, took note of Bent’s exalted expression. Some shook their heads, but Charles did not. Nothing the man said surprised him any longer.

  Over the winter he never spoke to Bent except in the course of duty. So he was astonished one evening the following April when he answered a knock at the door of his quarters and found the captain standing outside in the balmy darkness.

  Bent smiled. “Good evening, Lieutenant. Are you prepared to receive visitors?”

  “Certainly, sir. Come in.”

  He stepped back, the presence of the captain heightening his tension to a peak. Bent strutted into the room, and Charles closed the door. He smelled whiskey.

  Bent’s appearance was startling. For the call the captain had donned his dress uniform, complete with sash, saber, and plumed hat, which he now removed. His hair was parted in the center and glistened with fragrant oil. He glanced at some large, brown-tinted daguerreotypes lying on a chair.